impossible to know if any of it is true. I pull it out of the pocket of my shorts, where I stuffed it, and stand on my front stoop and read it over again.
I’ll tell you about myself.
Since part of what follows is fiction, it seems appropriate to speak of myself in the third person.
Paulie Barnes (what I’m calling myself) loves to read about true crime, the deaths and rapes and burglaries that really happen. None of that made-up stuff for him, no mystery novels, no fictional detectives, or make-believe cops. Give him the truth any day over fantasy; he is tough enough to take it. Give him real blood and guts. Make him feel as if he is actually there on the scene with the victims, the killers, the cops.
He loves it. Pour it on.
Until recently, his favorite true crime author was Ann Rule. His favorite book of hers was The Stranger Beside Me. You remember that one, of course. It was the incredibly bizarre true story about how she was writing a book about a serial killer when she discovered he was a friend of hers. His name was Ted Bundy.
(Don’t you love the chills that story gives you, Marie ?)
Stranger than fiction, that’s how Paulie likes it.
Now, however, his favorite true crime author is: you, Marie.
And then he wrote:
How’s that for a bang-up start ? I’m good, aren’t I ? I should be, I’ve studied your books enough to pick up your style of writing. It’s a little sensational for my taste—you can see that I possess a more elevated style—but I have seen for myself that it is fun to write your way, and it certainly is a thrill to read, I’ll be the first to admit that.
Why, I can hardly put it down!
One thing that is true, however, is that my new favorite book is going to be the one we will write together, Marie. I even have a working title for us. We’ll call it Last Words, with a subtitle, Best-selling Author Marie Lightfoot Tells the Horrifying, Tragic Story of Her Own Murder, Right Up to the Moment of Her Death.
Please do believe me when I promise you that ours will not be one of those omnipresent serial killer books. Yawn. Aren’t you sick to death of serial killers ? Couldn’t you just line them all up and shoot them ? That’s an amusing thought, a mass murder of serial killers.
No, I am not one of them.
Rest assured, I am something different. I am something new.
And you alone will have the privilege of discovering me.
I stick it back down in my pocket.
How could my life turn upside down so quickly? Yesterday morning I was standing in a grocery store line enjoying being anonymous, and now some anonymous creep has disturbed my peace of mind, my work, my employee. He has even managed to dredge up my past—the last thing I want to happen. But not the worst thing. This might be one of the worst things that could happen, this awful feeling of being invaded by an insidious, invisible virus. I feel as if I’ve been “hacked,” like a computer.
Is this what victims of stalkers feel like?
It’s ninety degrees, but I am frozen to my front stoop.
When Deb’s Volkswagen disappeared from my view, it looked filthy brown instead of white, but that was merely proof of her good citizenship. We’re in a prolonged drought in south Florida. It’s so bad that we’d almost rather hear that dreaded word hurricane than endure much more of this. God, what we wouldn’t give for a decent tropical storm. Winds of forty, even sixty miles an hour would be fine; a little four-foot storm surge, we can live with that. Just give us rain! Here in Bahia Beach—our city of 100,000 souls in between Fort Lauderdale and Pompano—water restrictions are tight enough to squeeze tears from a shark. Our street addresses dictate the days we may dampen our seared yards, and even then we’re limited to such odd hours that only the most dedicated lawn jockeys still do it. Washing cars and boats is completely verboten, except at commercial outfits that are exempted so they won’t go out of business.
As my cousin
I’ll tell you about myself.
Since part of what follows is fiction, it seems appropriate to speak of myself in the third person.
Paulie Barnes (what I’m calling myself) loves to read about true crime, the deaths and rapes and burglaries that really happen. None of that made-up stuff for him, no mystery novels, no fictional detectives, or make-believe cops. Give him the truth any day over fantasy; he is tough enough to take it. Give him real blood and guts. Make him feel as if he is actually there on the scene with the victims, the killers, the cops.
He loves it. Pour it on.
Until recently, his favorite true crime author was Ann Rule. His favorite book of hers was The Stranger Beside Me. You remember that one, of course. It was the incredibly bizarre true story about how she was writing a book about a serial killer when she discovered he was a friend of hers. His name was Ted Bundy.
(Don’t you love the chills that story gives you, Marie ?)
Stranger than fiction, that’s how Paulie likes it.
Now, however, his favorite true crime author is: you, Marie.
And then he wrote:
How’s that for a bang-up start ? I’m good, aren’t I ? I should be, I’ve studied your books enough to pick up your style of writing. It’s a little sensational for my taste—you can see that I possess a more elevated style—but I have seen for myself that it is fun to write your way, and it certainly is a thrill to read, I’ll be the first to admit that.
Why, I can hardly put it down!
One thing that is true, however, is that my new favorite book is going to be the one we will write together, Marie. I even have a working title for us. We’ll call it Last Words, with a subtitle, Best-selling Author Marie Lightfoot Tells the Horrifying, Tragic Story of Her Own Murder, Right Up to the Moment of Her Death.
Please do believe me when I promise you that ours will not be one of those omnipresent serial killer books. Yawn. Aren’t you sick to death of serial killers ? Couldn’t you just line them all up and shoot them ? That’s an amusing thought, a mass murder of serial killers.
No, I am not one of them.
Rest assured, I am something different. I am something new.
And you alone will have the privilege of discovering me.
I stick it back down in my pocket.
How could my life turn upside down so quickly? Yesterday morning I was standing in a grocery store line enjoying being anonymous, and now some anonymous creep has disturbed my peace of mind, my work, my employee. He has even managed to dredge up my past—the last thing I want to happen. But not the worst thing. This might be one of the worst things that could happen, this awful feeling of being invaded by an insidious, invisible virus. I feel as if I’ve been “hacked,” like a computer.
Is this what victims of stalkers feel like?
It’s ninety degrees, but I am frozen to my front stoop.
When Deb’s Volkswagen disappeared from my view, it looked filthy brown instead of white, but that was merely proof of her good citizenship. We’re in a prolonged drought in south Florida. It’s so bad that we’d almost rather hear that dreaded word hurricane than endure much more of this. God, what we wouldn’t give for a decent tropical storm. Winds of forty, even sixty miles an hour would be fine; a little four-foot storm surge, we can live with that. Just give us rain! Here in Bahia Beach—our city of 100,000 souls in between Fort Lauderdale and Pompano—water restrictions are tight enough to squeeze tears from a shark. Our street addresses dictate the days we may dampen our seared yards, and even then we’re limited to such odd hours that only the most dedicated lawn jockeys still do it. Washing cars and boats is completely verboten, except at commercial outfits that are exempted so they won’t go out of business.
As my cousin
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